Bodyline Revisited!

I have been enjoying a long vacation. One thing I usually do in my free time is search YouTube for some cricket videos. Recently I stumbled upon one fantastic TV series called the Bodyline. It beautifully portrayed the three protagonists of the Bodyline incident - Douglas Jardine, Harold Larwood, and Sir Donald Bradman. I strongly recommend every cricket fan to watch this TV Series. 

In order to give a preamble to my post, let me narrate the Bodyline story briefly. By 1931 Don Bradman had already built the reputation of being the greatest batsman to have ever taken the field. If England had to get the Ashes back, they would have to find someway to stop this almost supernatural batting displayed by Don Bradman. After a bit of controversy, Douglas Jardine was appointed as the captain of the England team. Against the wishes of the selectors, Jardine demanded a strong fast bowling unit. Jardine had in fact thought of a plan to restrict the Bradman dominance. He asked his bowlers especially Larwood to bowl fast and at the body of the Australian batsman. He had set a predominantly leg-side field, with fielders there waiting for a catch in case the batsman fended one of the balls aimed at the body. In fact, with this kind of bowling, the batsmen were left with only two options, either to fend the ball to the fielders or to get hit on the body. This ploy worked and England had won the series 4-1. But for this ploy to work, Jardine required a fast bowler who could tirelessly bowl at extreme pace and accuracy. For this Jardine had found Harold Larwood. 

What Jardine did was perfectly within the laws of the game. To be fair to Jardine, he did not have enough options if he wanted to win the Ashes.  In the opposition was a batsman blessed with almost super-human abilities whose could single-handed performance could win the series for the Aussies. What does one do when one faces such a player - Use everything at one's disposal to win the game or surrender to the greatness of the player. Jardine was not the kind of player who ever surrendered. In fact, Jardine had gone on to infamously say -  "I have not travelled 6000 miles to make friends but to win the Ashes."

But, we all know that cricket is a unique game. It has more to it than, just the laws governing it. So much so that in English, the phrase - "It is not cricket" refers to something which is not correct. Almost the entire cricketing fraternity feels that Jardine by employing those tactics breached the code of conduct. The supporters of Jardine would say that it is the responsibility of the lawmakers to ensure that they have covered all grounds. On the other hand, many others believe that it is the responsibility of the sportsmen who are the custodians of the game to play it in the spirit of the game.

While I am here not here to either defend Jardine or to condemn Jardine, I must point out, amid the copious amount of criticism being shed out, one must not forget to appreciate Larwood - the Bowler. It takes a lot of skill to bowl with that accuracy and pace as Harold Larwood did.

At the same juncture, it is worth examining the other Bodyline-like events that have taken place in the modern era. The famous Bodyline series is succeeded by numerous incidents where a few players have taken advantage of a loophole in the laws of the and a few have refused to do so. As I have already mentioned I feel a debate on what is correct is not really fruitful.

The Australians were very upset with the Bodyline tactics. The then Australian captain Bill Woodful even went on to say that only one team was playing cricket. Jardine went on to become the most hated man in Australia. On the occasion of Jardine's death, Bradman refused to give him an obituary.  On February 1st, 1981 Half a century after the infamous Bodyline Series took place the infamous Underarm incident. This time it was an Aussie who was the perpetrator. Greg Chappell asked his brother Trevor to bowl a ball underarm (all along the ground), with New Zealand requiring 6 runs off the last ball to TIE the game - Not to win, but to tie the game. Like Jardine, even Greg Chappell did not do anything to break the law. Neither Jardine nor Chappell were guilty of 'trying to win by hook or crook'. They did not cheat in any way.  They simply used, (if I am permitted to say) the loopholes in laws to their advantage. While Jardine's was a planned tactic, Greg's was the one that came in the heat of the moment. Whether they were right or wrong is a debate that has no end.

One more such incident, which is not talked about too often happened when the Indians toured West Indies under Bishen Singh Bedi in 1976. Sunil Gavaskar describes what happened at Jamaica as barbarism. More than trying to get the Indians out, the West Indians were trying to get them injured. Gavaskar in his autobiography Sunny Days says that the crowd rejoiced every time an Indian got injured. As many as five Indians were absent hurt in the second innings of the test match. It is true that this bowling did differ from the Bodyline in one major regard - The field placements. Nevertheless, that strategy adopted by the West Indies has to be in question from the point of view of the spirit of the game. As a bowler, if one continuously aims at the body of the batsman rather than the stumps, then there is something wrong going on.

Now, there is a question of Mankading. It was started by the Indian left-arm bowler Vinoo Mankad the 1947-48 tour of Australia, when he ran out the Australian batsman Bill Brown while delivering the ball (While Bill was backing up ).  There have been quite a few instances since then where batsman have been mankanded by bowlers like Greg Chappell did it in an ODI and so did Kapil Dev. Few bowlers have refused to mankand.  For instance, quite famously in the 1987 WC Walsh refused to Mankad Salim Jaffer and that cost the WI a place in the semi-final. In 2003, The Bangladeshi bowler Mohammad Rafique refused to mankand Umar Gul. Pakistan won that test match by 1 wicket. If the mankading was done, Bangladesh could have had historic Test win.  Quite recently, there was an incident involving Ravichandran Ashwin and Lahiru Tirhumanne. After Ashwin mankanded Tirhumanne the stand-in captain Virender Sehwag withdrew the appeal.

In Christchurch, there was another incident that sparked a bit of controversy. It was test match between Sri Lanka and New Zealand. Kumar Sangakkara was batting with the last man Muttiah  Muralitharan. Sanga took a single to get to his hundred. There was never a second run in it and both the batsman knew it. Murali casually tapped his bat in the crease, assuming that ball was dead (which was not the case), and with no intention of the second went towards Kumar Sangakkara to congratulate him. Since the ball was not yet dead, Brendon McCullum ran out Murali.

A very similar thing had happened in 1974 at Trinidad. Tony Grieg and Alvin Kalicharan were the men involved in that incident. Kalicharan had assumed the close of play for the day and Tony quick to realise that the ball was still in play ran him out. This resulted in a huge outbreak in the crowd. The next day the English camp decided to reinstate Kalicharan.

A more recent incident of this kind happened when India toured England in 2011. In the second test match at tent-bridge, Ian Bell after playing the last ball before tea started walking towards the dressing room as the ball was still in play. The Indians quick to realise this ran him out. But after the interval, they  withdrew the appeal for the sake the spirit of the game.

In fact, after the bodyline incident, there have been so many incidents that have happened (I have just narrated a few of them that came to my mind) in the game which have asked the same question. The question that remains is if it is okay to be within boundaries of the laws of the game and not worry about the manner in which the game has to be played or should we remember that there is much more to our coveted game than the thick law book.

All these incidents, especially the Bodyline series has helped the game evolve. Since ours is a very complicated sport with a Law Book which almost resembles the advocate's law book with so many laws, it can only improve and become perfect when it learns from such incidents.


Please let me know your thoughts by posting your comments down here